Black Friday is a weird tradition. Since the 1960s, American consumers gathered at the malls and "big box" stores on the day after Thanksgiving for so-called "door-buster" deals. All this consumerism an have injurious, or even fatal consequences. But for the Boston Symphony Orchestra and its audience, today was just another Friday matinee at Symphony Hall, a civilized pause for high culture in the middle of all the holiday hype.

The program for this week's concert featured a crowd-pleasing pairing of Brahms (the Piano Concerto No. 2 with soloist Peter Serkin) and the Beethoven Seventh Symphony. With the sturdy conductor Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos on the podium, this looked to be safe serving of holiday fare, sure to please the musically conservative audiences that attend the BSO's Friday concerts.

For most of his long career Giuseppe Verdi was known for writing tragedies, from the family drama of his first opera Oberto to his masterpiece Otello. For his final opera and last musical utterance, he finally turned to comedy. Working with librettist Arrigo Boito (his collaborator on Otello), he created Falstaff from the Shakespeare play The Merry Wives of Windsor.

It's Thanksgiving here and I thought it might to be time to stop in the middle of hurried holiday travel packing (we're going to Connecticut and to Friday's concert at Boston's Symphony Hall) and give thanks.

Thank you for reading this blog. And if you've been here for all of its nearly seven years offering classical music and opera coverage and criticism, thank you.

A revival of Der Rosenkavalier (particularly in the Metropolitan Opera's sturdy, attractive, and 44-year-old production) is always welcome. The opera premiered at the Metropolitan Opera a century ago, enchanting listeners with its mix of comedy and sentiment, spurred on by irresistible waltzes that make it Richard Strauss' most popular stage work. This is one of the house's oldest shows, a company classic enjoying its last revival before retirement. (Apparently, a new production is projected to open the 2016 season.)

Benjamin Britten's 1945 opera Peter Grimes remains the most enduring of the composer's stage works. One of the few major works from the mid-20th century that has a secure place in the international operatic repertory, it was the ideal choice for a celebration of the composer's 100th birthday on Friday night at Carnegie Hall. And there was no better choice for this tale of an individual against the oppression of a community than the St. Louis Symphony, here under the baton of its music director David Robertson.

Friday, November 22, 2013

Today is the name day of St. Cecilia, patron saint of musicians. It's also the 100th birthday of British composer Benjamin Britten. To commemorate the latter occasion, the New York Philharmonic scheduled three performances of the composer's lesser known works this week: the Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings and the Spring Symphony. The performances were intended to provide a showcase for Paul Appleby, who would sing the tenor parts in each piece.

The Juilliard Opera is more than just a student ensemble--this is one of the most innovative companies at Lincoln Center. Each season, the students and guest artists at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater find ways to present a vast and diverse repertory. On Wednesday night, Juilliard opened its 2013 opera season with a new production of Handel's Radamisto by James Darrah. The performances, featuring the school period ensemble Juilliard 415, marked the conservatory debut of conductor Julian Wachner.

It is not common practice for reviewers to attend the last night of a concert weekend by the New York Philharmonic. But Tuesday night's concert, the last of four featuring two major tone poems by Richard Strauss and an Oboe Concerto by current composer-in-residence Christopher Rouse proved an historic occasion. For this was the last time that outgoing concertmaster Glenn Dicterow would play the solo parts in Don Juan and Also Sprach Zarathustra. (It was also this writer's only chance to see this concert following his return from last week's Chicago trip.)

In a late breaking item (courtesy of Lisa Hirsch at The Iron Tongue of Midnight) soprano Erin Morley will take over as Sophie in the Metropolitan Opera's 2013 revival of Der Rosenkavalier. The Richard Strauss comedy, one of the composer's most beloved comic creations, opens Friday at the Metropolitan Opera House.

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

The annual Richard Tucker Gala is like opera's equivalent of the All-Star Game, a chance to hear today's foremost opera singers alongside the stars of tomorrow. Held to commemorate the Richard Tucker Foundation's annual awarding of the Tucker Prize to a promising young singer, this concert at Lincoln Center attracts affluent opera lovers and industry cognoscenti alike. This year's gala also celebrated the centennial of Richard Tucker's birth, and featured a new banner across the back of the stage with five portraits of the late tenor and New York native.

Monday, November 18, 2013

The American Symphony Orchestra pays tribute to Elliott Carter.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The composer Elliott Carter in his New York apartment in 1983.
Photo by Nancy Crampton courtesy Boosey & Hawkes.

New York's own Elliott Carter was the dean of modern music in this country, an artist whose vast output spanned orchestral works, songs and even opera. His music always looked relentlessly forward, breaking new ground even in his last works. On Sunday afternoon at Carnegie Hall Leon Botstein and the American Symphony Orchestra celebrated the memory of this great composer, who died on November 5 of last year at the age of 103. The carefully curated program offered six of Carter's pieces, spanning eight decades of his output and giving a glimpse at the wide variety of styles and music created over a long compositional career.

Der Rosenkavalier is a rambunctious Viennese comedy, a bitter-sweet coming of age story that chronicles Octavian's transition from a sweet, adulterous relationship with the Marschallin (Marina Serafin) to eventual marriage to Sophie von Faninal, a 15-year-old ingenue played by Erin Morley. (She is a late replacement for Mojca Erdmann, who is recovering from pneumonia.) Edward Gardner conducts.

Friday, November 15, 2013

On Thursday night, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra marked the 100th birthday of composer Benjamin Britten (coming up on November 22nd) with the first of three performances of his War Requiem. This massive work, requiring two seperate orchestras, chorus, children's choir and three soloists, was conducted by Charles Dutoit, the Swiss maestro whose globe-girdling 2013 conducting schedule has focused on performances of this particular work.

The Lyric Opera of Chicago's new production of Parsifal (by director John Caird, making his house debut) is at once modern and old-fashioned, re-imagining Wagner's medieval iconography (Spear, Grail, magic garden) in a way that makes sense to a modern audience and still respects the rich stage history of this opera at Bayreuth and elsewhere. Mr. Caird's production uses six principal dancers (the choreographer is Tim Claydon) to create a vision of flying swans, woodland creatures (Kundry arrives by anthropomorphic horseback) and more movement than one usually sees in this static opera. The results are emotionally satisfying and magical, and familiar enough to please even the most conservative Wagnerite.

Despite a run of strong performances last season and a wave of critical acclaim, the Metropolitan Opera's still-new Michael Mayer production of Rigoletto remains controversial. Mr. Mayer's production updates Verdi's opera to 1960s Las Vegas, transforming the Duke into a Frank Sinatra-type casino entertainer and the titular hunchbacked jester as his opening act: a painfully unfunny insult comic.

Estonian conductor Neeme Järvi is of the old school, and not just because the conductor is now 76. On Sunday evening, he brought the Estonian National Symphonic Orchestra and the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir to the White Light Festival at Lincoln Center. Their purpose: a program of Sibelius, Tormis, Mozart and Arvo Pärt at Avery Fisher Hall. Billed as The Word Made Flesh, this concert was part of this year's White Light Festival.

In March of this year, the New York Philharmonic offered The Bach Variations, an an entire month celebrating the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. Not only did this festival remind concert-goers of this ensemble's skill with baroque music, it also provided opportunity for some lesser-known conductors to appear with the orchestra. One of them was Bernard Labadie, music director of Les Violons du Roy and a specialist in music from the baroque era. On Friday night, he conducted with a brisk, efficient energy, moving lightly on his feet and drawing dulcet tones from singers and ensemble.

The stars are aligned.
The twelfth messenger has arrived.
The red falcon has come home.

In other words, the Metropolitan Opera finally revived Richard Strauss's Die Frau ohne Schatten last night. This handsome production by the late Herbert Wernicke has been absent from that company's stage for nine years, an almost unforgivable oversight by one of the few North American companies capable of mounting this difficult work.

On Monday night, the Collegiate Chorale opened their 2013 season at Carnegie Hall with a concert performance of Arrigo Boito's Mefistofele. This was one of the most anticipated evenings of the fall opera season in New York, and marked the first appearance of baritone Eric Owens in the demanding title role. It was also the first performance of Mefistofele in 13 years--the show was last seen at the Metropolitan Opera in 2000 in Robert Carsen's sturdy production.

Franz Welser-Möst and the Cleveland Orchestra have been absent from Lincoln Center since 2008 when they presented a five-day festival pairing the symphonies of Anton Bruckner with music by John Adams. On Monday night, conductor and orchestra returned to Lincoln Center for another combination of classical and modern composers: in this case Ludwig van Beethoven and Olivier Messiaen. This unusual, but effective pairing was a major concert of this year's White Light Festival, the performing arts center's annual Fall exploration of the numinous in the lively arts.

On Sunday evening, the fledgling New York Opera Exchange explored French repertory with a charming production of Romeo et Juliette, the five-act adaptation of Shakespeare's play by composer Charles Gounod. The production was mounted at the Unitarian Church of All Souls on Lexington Avenue. Though beautiful, the space was a risky choice: sound resonated freely in the room, but so did mistakes. A few hiccups in the overture gave way to a consistent performance from the orchestra, which navigated Gounod’s delicate dissonances smoothly under conductor David Liebowitz.

Die Frau ohne Schatten is a beloved Richard Strauss opera, but like a comet, it is only seen occasionally. Constructed on an enormous scale and requiring a huge orchestra, this 1919 work is at once a fairy tale, an ode to domestic harmony and a celebration of the joys of having children.

Friday, November 1, 2013

Ever since he stepped in, Bernstein-like to lead the Philharmonia Orchestra in a performance of Mahler's Third Symphony, Esa-Pekka Salonen has led the double existence of composer and conductor. Happily, he has succeeded in both endeavors, leading crisp, hospital-corner performances of orchestral music from the last three centuries, while breaking new musical ground with his own eclectic compositional style.

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Critical Thinking in the Cheap Seats

Since 2007, Superconductor has grown from an occasional concert or CD review to a near-daily publication covering classical music, opera and the arts in and around NYC, with excursions to Boston, Philadelphia, and upstate NY. I am a freelance writer living and working in Brooklyn NY. And no, I'm not a conductor.